Visiting the King...

I can’t really sufficiently explain to you how important the King is here. He is beloved. The colors on the Thai flag—red, blue and white—stand for Thailand, Buddhism, and the King. Though officially removed from political power since the 1932 coup that implemented a constitutional monarchy system like Britain’s, the king is anything but a figurehead. Over the course of his sixty-year reign, he’s been the protector of stability and order in the midst of military coups, political violence and widespread protests. More than just respected, he’s also deeply loved by the Thai people. He’s a symbol of unity in a politically fractious and volatile country. Before every movie, audiences stand to listen to the national anthem played over a montage of clips of the King. People in the theatres cry. And while I can’t tell you what every Thai person says in private about the King, in public the only sentiments expressed are abundantly positive and loving (saying or publishing anything negative about the King is against the law).

In September, the King fell ill and was rushed to the hospital. There’s a general sense of held breaths and hushed tones surrounding his health. Particularly with the violence of these past few years protests, and continued questions over the viability and legitimacy of the current constitution, the stability offered by the King is much needed. Since he fell ill, Thai people have been visiting his hospital in droves.

This past weekend we decided to go to the hospital to offer some well wishes. Absolutely every activity we embark on is fraught with fear of being culturally ignorant and offensive, and this was obviously no exception.

Our confused taxi driver dropped us at the hospital inpatient doors (our Thai is so poor the best we could do was to communicate that we needed to go to the hospital), and after a decent amount of wandering around sickbays in a gigantic hospital compound, we found the courtyard we’d seen on the news, filled with incense and flowers and so many well-wishers. Vendors offered food and flowers to visitors. People milled about, periodically glancing upward to the floor where the king is staying. We bumbled around a little and lit some incense, offering a prayer and hoping we weren’t doing anything too wrong. We were about to leave when a woman beckoned us up into a large room to sign one of the many books available for well-wishers. As we sat down to sign the book, the press photographers in the room jumped up and swarmed our table, documenting our signing. We tried to retreat with swiftness and subtlety, but the photographers asked Anna and I to sit and pray in front of the statue of the King. We obliged their wishes, awkwardly (The attention we get here—both positive and negative—for being foreigners is…confusing. I am never sure how to respond).

It was all very beautiful and interesting, and for me brought up only more questions about the institution of the monarchy. It’s a very different type of thing for an American to get their head around, this apolitical but at the same time very powerful institution.

Here’s a picture from the hospital:



And a couple of news stories about the King:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6843789.ece

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/10/31/national/national_30115568.php

(The link to the wiki is blocked in this country)



Okay that is all for now. Happy Halloween dear readers.


Yours,
Rebecca

HOMESTAY

I have my first Thai friend! Her name is Nong Mae, and really I guess she is more than a friend because she is also my Thai sister. She is seventeen, speaks incredible English, is an excellent hairdresser and loves Korean boy bands (especially Big Bang). I spent this past weekend with Nong Mae, my new Thai Ma and Paw, and my other little sister Nong Mook. The family was so very kind it was sort of outrageous. They took me to ancient ruins, to the cinema, to no less than six temples, to an island, to an elephant show, etc., etc.

Here’s my family:



Saturday night I had the honor of joining their extended family for dinner at grandmother’s house, and was taught to cook (“tam-a-han”) several Thai dishes. Here’s the recipe for one of the dishes, Tom-Yum-Goong, which is a traditional shrimp soup, so you can make it:





-add ¼ cup each of diced lemongrass, purple pearl onions, chopped kaffir lime leaves and an herb called “ka” into boiling water; wait three minutes
-add ½ spoon of salt
-add ½ cup diced straw mushrooms; wait some more minutes
-add shrimp; wait maybe eight minutes
-add hand-crushed red and green chili pepper and lime
-eat with rice

I spent the weekend butchering the Thai language in an effort to communicate with the rest of the family. Nong Mae (who is able to speak English because she attends a private and costly English language program outside of school) was an excellent teacher and gave me detailed and lengthy Thai vocabulary lists. She thought it wise to give me a list of the bad words so that I could reprimand my students for using them:



Calling someone a monitor lizard here is a really, really big deal.

Nong Mae was really a delight. She and I are pretty much thick as thieves. She introduced me to what a cultural powerhouse Korea is becoming. Her favorite movies, television shows and bands are Korean rather than Thai or American. Most of the Korean media she showed me seemed derivative of American pop culture circa late 1990s through now, but I’m sure a lot of the Korean nuance was lost on me. To explain to me her most favorite band, Big Bang, Nong Mae took out the plastic-wrapped concert brochure that she carries with her at all times. She lovingly flipped through the glossy pages and described each member’s personality, role in the group dynamic, and level of appeal.





Here are Nong Mae and I on an elephant. The whole elephant show experience added another layer for my ponderings about animal-domination/anthropomorphism-tourism (for lack of a better word). Both here and in South Africa, taking animals from nature and training out their wildness is a serious industry. It’s sad but also it’s weird. How and why is it that people somehow end up paying to see elephants trained to bob up and down to Black Eyed Peas?

Now it’s back to classes. It’s getting rather tiring sitting through seven hours of class a day. This doesn’t bode terribly well for my impending career as a teacher, nor does my inability to speak the Thai language and my continued ignorance of how to teach. Oh well.

What else is new with you, dear reader? You haven’t been e-mailing me as I requested. And no one ever comments. Is the comment feature broken? My sister thinks so.

And what’s happening in the news? I think maybe I’ve never been so disconnected from American news in all my life. Did you know that over here they call the recession the “Hamburger Recession” because it was started in America?

Yours truly,
Rebecca

Thai language class...

is really hard.

I have included a special message for all of you back home:




It means (roughly):
Hello. I miss you. Everything tastes like fish here. I love you. Goodbye.

I had a homestay this weekend. It was really lovely. My Thai family was incredibly kind and gave me a Thai nickname (Lintse). I'll write more when I get a chance?

Okay take care.

Yours,
Rebecca

Pictures, too!

If you click on the Picasa Photostream "gadget" on the left you can see some more pictures from the first week, if you're so included.

Yours,
R

One week in...

Greetings friends!

I’ve now been in Bangkok for one week and two days now. How time flies, yes?

And what a city. I can’t think of any city I’ve spent time in that compares in effect to Bangkok. It’s a world of a city; just eight million people but all of them living amongst a sea of skyscrapers spread in every direction, reaching into apparent infinitude. Between all the skyscrapers is everything really: neighborhoods, used car parts stores, high-end shopping centers, 7-11s, temples, shacks, packs of dogs, monks, silk-screen shops, salons and street vendors, and so, so many people.

For the most part, I’ve been busy with orientation. Every morning our conspicuous little flock of American girls walks through the streets of waking Bangkok to Chulalongkorn University for training. Your tax dollars are treating us to a speedy but rigorous education in Thai culture, language, economics, history, politics and education policy, as well a primer in being an educator and in teaching English to speakers of another language. We spend our days absorbing all of this information as presented by a panoply of Thai government officials, American diplomats, and university professors. It’s the next best thing to happen to me since school ended. It does make me aware of how unqualified I am to teach, and especially to teach English (our lecturer today asked how we would explain the past subjunctive tense…), but I’m here so I suppose that’s really a moot point.

I spent the weekend industriously touristing. Within about thirty-six hours we visited Chinatown, shopped in a gigantic and packed market in north Bangkok, took a boat up the main river, visited several Wats and a Golden Mount, went to a bar dripping with farangs (foreigners), and trekked many miles for an American style Sunday brunch. The only part of the weekend worth writing home about was our Friday night visit to an exclusive club for Bangkok’s rich and fabulous (“hi-so,” if you will). A chance invitation landed us in the company of fashionable and glamorous Thais, including not just a senator but also the son of a publishing magnate, as well as German-Korean model. We stuck out like sore, unfashionable thumbs.

I’ve put up some pictures if you’re interested. I’m off to orientation now. I take an oath that my future entries will be more interesting. Please take care. And do send me e-mails? You’re not the only one who is bored by the fact that I only talk about myself in these entries.

Yours,
Rebecca

P.S. re: Arrival

Here I am at an internet cafe with Anna! Now you have photographic proof I am here!

I will post more pictures later, I promise.

Arrival

Dear readers,

Whew!

I arrived in Bangkok late Friday night, pallid and confused from a near sleepless thirty hours in planes and airports. The forty-five minute drive into Bangkok was a steamy and surreal final leg of the journey, towers of glass and light rising up to meet us as we rumbled towards our new home. The night air was terribly hot and heavy, its effect a bit like a warm and buzzing embrace.

The sun woke me yesterday from a night of dreamless sleep. For the next month I am staying with the nine other Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) at the Suskit Nives International House of Chulalongkorn University. The room is nice: a rectangle; two single beds with hard mattresses draped in shiny sky-blue polyester sheets that rustle; institution-white walls; florescent lights and not enough of them; air-conditioning; and a beautiful mint-teal fridge that is really the heart of the room. My roommate Rachel is from Lafayette, Louisiana and graduated from Hendrix. She, along with all of other ETAs, seems interesting and bright. Our neighborhood is centrally located, and characterized by crowded streets, diverse smells and busy shops with faded awnings.

No one seems to have very high expectations for us for the first two days. Our only official task yesterday was a brief meeting with the lovely program coordinator Siriporn. She delivered our first month’s stipend in the form of a large taped envelope stuffed with baht, took us on a walk around the neighborhood, and then left for a massage appointment. I spent what feels like the bulk of the day in one of Bangkok’s largest malls, the MBK shopping center. It is no mid-western mall of the Americas but rather a six-story explosion of activity that is one part mall, two parts market, and packed with people from wall to wall. The fourth floor, dedicated entirely to cell phones, is a labyrinth of narrow and loud stands pushing imposter iphones and “blackberys” (I have a phone now. Do call me!). The MBK also provided hours of gratuitous people watching, ideal for studying the social codes and fashion habits of Thai young and old. I am trying to soak up as much as I can in the vain hope that this will help me avoid some number of gaffes in the future.

In the evening we had our first Thai dinner at a small noodle house in the neighborhood and walked back through a bustling Saturday night street market. Looking for a drink on the way back to our dorm, Anna and I happened an exceptionally bizarre hotel bar. As we entered the dim purple and orange neon-lit lounge of the Siam Siam Hotel, the notes of a not-too-shabby cover of Mustang Sally surrounded us. An audience of mostly older foreigners and a few young Thai dates milled about enjoying overpriced drinks and an unreal ambiance. The wholly endearing cover band consisted of four middle aged men and two adorable women in their late twenties. They played everything from Queen to Cyndi Lauper to Elvis. I like thinking about their rehearsals, you know? How they choose those songs; if one of them is always trying to get more funk on the set list but gets shot down by the front man who thinks they should stick to top 40 songs; if they have any of their own songs; where and when they had their first rehearsal (are there garages in Thailand?). A sign on the wall advertised that the band plays at the Siam Siam every “Satursday Night.”

Now it’s Sunday, our last day of rest before orientation starts. If you’re reading this you can see I am doing swimmingly with my attempt to update my blog once a week. I think I’m also going to do some grocery shopping and stock my precious mint green fridge with yogurt and fruit. I think I may get a massage as well, and explore the large park that’s not too far from here. Tomorrow I begin orientation. Thai classes, culture classes, history classes and lots of forms. I’m sure this is all terribly interesting to you, dear reader. Perhaps (and hopefully for you) more exciting things will happen to me this week such that next week’s installation will be far more entertaining and informative. Perhaps I will share my mastery of the Thai language with you, or regale you with fascinating tid-bits from Thai history. Perhaps I will rant for a page about mundane frustrations with minor details of the public transportation system. Who knows; I’ve only been here a day!

I miss you all very much.

With love,
Rebecca